A great book turned into a crappy film. This is the second screen adaptation, attempted adaptation, of James Jones classic novel, and both fail miserably. Three, long, boring hours of meandering garbage. Japanese soldiers inaccurately portrayed, story garbled, an incredible waste of time.

Was like suffering through a 2 hour Calvin Klein commercial, Apocalypse Now style.My God what a heady bunch of crap!Should be called the "The Thin Pink Line", 'cuz this was a complete Metro waste of film.

This film is more entertaining than a 3 hour delay at Heathrow,,, but only marginally. If the film were edited down to the scenes with humans in (or better still to those where they actually have something to do or say!) then you would be left with a powerful 60 mins. Sadly, the director has self-indulgently bloated it out with hour after tedious hour of rivers, dolphins, trees, fields,This film is more entertaining than a 3 hour delay at Heathrow,,, but only marginally. If the film were edited down to the scenes with humans in (or better still to those where they actually have something to do or say!) then you would be left with a powerful 60 mins. Sadly, the director has self-indulgently bloated it out with hour after tedious hour of rivers, dolphins, trees, fields, sunsets (sun-rises..). A shot of a field or a mountain has told me everything it can after 5 to 10 seconds, so why am I forced to stare at it for another minute and a half!? Clearly some arty farty space-cadet types like it, but I suspect the common mortal like myself, will lose the will to live long before the half-way point.…Expand

Yes, this is a Terrence Malick film. I am not into them, actually. The point of the film is more in the personal journey of the men in war, their dilemmas, struggles, and lives. It is touching at times, beautiful to look at, but the film is far too long for my tastes, as it cannot really grasp me at any point. It is as if the space is great, but there is too little to fill it with.

The movie's schizophrenia keeps it from greatness (this film has no firm idea of what it is about), but doesn't make it bad. It is, in fact, sort of fascinating: a film in the act of becoming, a field trial, an experiment in which a dreamy poet meditates on stark reality.